Recent developments in information systems technology have created a wealth of new marketing opportunities. Cable television technology, as one example, has been the subject of recent developments which allow local operators to display local advertising during certain preselected portions of the broadcast programming. Similar are cable systems whose local advertising and programming may be fully or partially controlled from the uplink site or in a hierarchical fashion.
As additional broadband connectivity reaches the home and businessplace, interactivity becomes a larger issue; cable and other television industries are devoting significant research and development resources to interactive systems aimed at extracting demographic information from viewers and end users regarding what they are watching, the products they buy, and why they buy them. Customized presentation of information and interactivity has also reached print media, where newspapers feature sports lines, entertainment lines, and online connection for access to a broad range of information. Periodicals may be selectively bound, as another example, to include specialized types of advertising determined by zip code and, recently, even by mailbox, with the subscriber's name and address printed on envelopes and other promotional material contained within the periodicals. Those in electronic and print media can accordingly tailor their journalism and advertising product to individual audiences, and they and the advertisers may utilize feedback from the interactive aspects of the technology in order to tailor the presentation and advertising.
Direct point-of-sale locations have not yet directly benefited from these information systems techniques, however. One advance that has been made in that respect is provision of certain point of sale locations with cable programming or personal computer/compact disc-read only memory capacity that allows display of audio and/or visual information in the service station area and, if desired, on the service islands. However, these systems are dependent upon the cooperativeness of employees in ensuring that the programming or compact disc continues to play rather than being deactivated. Additionally, such CD systems do not lend themselves to control of programming from a central location directly or by groups of stations (hierarchically). Nor do they lend themselves to interactive capabilities, such as provision of real time information regarding advertising effectiveness or customer exposure for use by advertisers and others.